


call it a draw

by irnan



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Skateboarding, preboot fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It would appear that Damian’s friend Colin likes to skateboard,” says Dick blandly. “And when the Boy Wonder here insisted that yes, of course he knew how to skateboard, Colin suggested they meet at the skatepark on Saturday. You know. Since they both enjoy it so much.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	call it a draw

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what it is about Tim and skateboarding that appeals to me so much, but it _does_.

Tim Drake’s seen a lot of bizarre things in the course of his admittedly unusual adolescence, but finding Damian Wayne trying and failing to skateboard in the BatBunker might just be a new low.

Or high, depending on how much you enjoy watching seeing ten year old stab-happy ninja babies fall off their skateboards.

Damian growls at him when he realises he’s there and picks himself up with a woeful attempt at grace and dignity. Falling off a skateboard is conducive to neither of these things. Tim would know.

“It helps if you don’t _start_ with kickflips,” he says.

Damian tells him to go do something with himself that Tim cannot in good conscience repeat, even to himself. There’s a pink tinge to his cheekbones, and he doesn’t usually curse much, so he’s clearly very, very embarrassed.

“It would help if you took it outside,” says Cass from somewhere behind the computer banks. Tim grins. Dick’s with her as well, wearing civvies, arms crossed over his chest. It takes Tim aback sometimes when he sees his brother out of the Batsuit and realises his new size isn’t _all_ padding. Dick’s broader and heavier now than he was as Nightwing, and it shows.

“And embarrass myself further?” says Damian irritably.

“Your own fault,” says Cass, unmoved. But Tim can tell she’s at least partly amused by Damian’s antics.

“What happened?” he asks.

“None of your business, Drake,” Damian snaps.

“It would appear that Damian’s friend Colin likes to skateboard,” says Dick blandly. “And when the Boy Wonder here insisted that yes, of course he knew how to skateboard, Colin suggested they meet at the skatepark on Saturday. You know. Since they both enjoy it so much.”

Tim starts laughing. “Well done, Tony Hawk.”

Damian glowers. He’s gearing up for some scathing comment – or possibly another obscene suggestion – when Dick adds offhandedly, “You should give him some pointers, Tim.”

There’s an appalled silence.

“Drake _skateboards_?” Damian scoffs. “I’ve never seen him out of a three-piece suit.”

“That’s just not true,” says Tim. “And for your information, yes, I skateboard.”

“Even supposing that were true,” says Damian, “I wouldn’t trust you to teach me _anything_.”

Behind him Dick sighs, unfolding his arms and coming across the bunker to join them. Shrugging, Tim says, “That’s more than fine with me, Damian.” He feels sort of bad for the kid when this happens – when Damian so clearly wants a fight with him, but Tim just can’t muster up the energy to be provoked. Steph thinks it’s because he’s got superior Bat-self-control, but Tim just honestly, genuinely cannot be bothered to play.

It doesn’t stop Damian glaring at him. When Dick puts his hand on the kid’s shoulder, the glare transfers to him. Dick just shakes his head at it.

“Damian,” he says, “it’s only common sense to learn a new skill from someone who’s actually good at it.”

“It’s either that or break your neck,” Tim agrees. Then, when the implications catch up with him, he says, “Wait, _what_?”

Dick turns a look on him that makes Tim want to run screaming: it’s his _please help me little brother_ look, the one Tim knows perfectly well is fake all through, because Dick never, ever asks for help, even when he needs it, but goddamn is it ever effective. It plays on all Tim’s old hero-worship and love for his brother and occasional guilt that he left Dick alone here in Gotham for so long with a boy he didn’t know how to raise and a cowl he never wanted to wear and damn damn _damn_ it’s working already.

Tim tries to glare back, but it’s half-hearted.

“Tim, he’ll break his neck,” says Dick, putting a pleading, worried twist on the echo.

“He’s _Robin_ ,” says Tim desperately. “He’ll be _fine_.”

“Of course I will!”

“Either you learn this from someone who’s actually competent to teach you or you’re grounded,” Dick says to Damian.

Tim takes this opportunity to try backing away. Dick’s hand snakes out and closes around his wrist. Bastard.

“We do more dangerous things –“

“That’s exactly my point! You’ve had training for all of it.”

“Training that should be sufficient to allow me to master one juvenile toy!”

“Clearly not,” says Cass.

They all look at her.

“I can’t skateboard either,” she says.

“Don’t encourage him,” Tim begs. “Please, please don’t encourage him.”

For an answer, Cass takes Damian’s skateboard off him and wobbles her way across the Bunker. “It’s fun,” she says, turning an awkward curve around the computer station and back to them.

“I’ve got a board meeting,” Tim says desperately when she nearly runs him over getting off the thing. He’s not sure she’s not doing it on purpose. Cass is Cass: just because she can’t skateboard doesn’t mean she’s clumsy.

“I don’t _need_ his help!”

“Well, you could always meet with Colin this Saturday and admit to him that you couldn’t skateboard if your life depended on it,” says Dick blandly.

Damian grinds his teeth so hard Tim hears it.

“Board meeting!” he says again. “I need to –“

“Tim, please,” says Dick earnestly.

“You have to teach me too,” says Cass. “What’s a kickflip?”

She holds out the skateboard to him. It’s a good one, Tim will admit that, and so new it’s just about glowing, no scrapes or scratches anywhere. He rubs at the back of his neck for a second; reaches out to touch it with his fingertips.

He sighs.

“This,” he says, “is a kickflip.” Takes it off her; moves away to demonstrate. It’s been years, and his balance is off, even just standing; he tries a straight line, a curve or two, another line back, and messes up the first flip; so much for muscle memory. It annoys him so he does it again, and a third time, which is easier, and then he tries for a double and fails at that too; Damian laughs at him.

Now _that_ pisses Tim off. He takes the board for another spin round the computer station the way Cass did, curves around the training mats, kickflip kickflip wheelie kickflip pivot – and he almost falls off that one, but catches himself just in time and tries another double flip and lands perfectly, this time. He’s wearing the wrong shoes for this. Not to mention the suit.

He looks up at his siblings. Cass is smiling. Damian has his arms crossed over his chest. Dick raises an eyebrow at him.

“Come on, little brother,” he says. “Show me what you got.”

“Nice try,” says Tim.

Trouble is, he’s grinning widely.

“If you’re going to insist on this,” Damian says acidly to Dick, “the least you could do is come along.”

Alarmed, Dick says, “Well, I –“

“Yeah, Dick,” says Tim. “Why _don’t_ you come along?”

Trapped, Dick glares at him. It's just as fake as the guilt-thing earlier. Tim grins at him. Dick quirks an eyebrow at him, but doesn't let his expression change otherwise.

“We’ll have to stop and buy more skateboards,” says Cass.

“Mine’s at the Manor,” says Tim.

“We’re not driving out there for it,” Damian snaps.

“You go ahead then,” says Tim. “I’ll join you at the park. You know how long it took me to break my board in? I love that thing.”

“Alfred can bring it over,” says Dick.

“Along with a packed lunch?” Tim scoffs. He doesn’t often scoff at the prospect of an Alfred lunch special, so Dick looks surprised. “Hotdogs and pizza or nothing,” Tim explains. It’s _tradition_. Mrs Mac would leave him the money in the jar by the phone, and Tim would grab it in the mornings and run out the house with his skateboard clamped under one arm and not come back till almost dark, when he’d nap for a few hours and then go on patrol.

It gives him an odd jolt to realise that nothing’s changed, except that he takes Batarangs on patrol now and not cameras.

“Strawberry milkshakes?” says Dick.

Tim crosses his arms over his chest. “Chocolate,” he says.

Cass says, “Banana,” very firmly.

“Sounds _disgusting_ ,” says Damian. And then, looking for all the world as if this was his idea from the start, he tucks his hands into his pockets and says nonchalantly, “Vanilla for me.”

"OK!" says Tim. "One other thing."

Everyone looks at him expectantly.

"Kneepads, elbowpads, helmets," he says.

Dick grins widely. "Batman-themed?" 

*********

Selina’s laughter in the lounge of their hotel suite makes Bruce look up. The TV’s on; he puts his papers aside and comes to join her, curious.

“What is it?”

It’s not the TV, it’s her laptop. She beckons him closer; he bends over her shoulder as she rewinds the player. “GCTV,” she says, still laughing. “Look at this.”

The announcer onscreen shuffles her papers into order and says, “And finally, in a more lighthearted bit of news, it seems that Gotham’s resident superboy Tim Drake-Wayne blew off a board meeting earlier today in order to teach his siblings how to skateboard. All the Wayne siblings were filmed practising their kickflips in the Endsbury Park skatepark this afternoon – even supposed grown up Dick Grayson. Let’s hope the WE board isn’t about to begrudge them a little bit of family fun!”

Bruce reaches out to pause the vid on a still of Tim halfway through some ridiculous flipping manoeuvre. Dick’s in the background of the shot, balancing his own board on the back two wheels and laughing; Damian and Cass are eating hotdogs off to the right.

“Alfred never used to let _me_ eat that junk,” he says, aggrieved, and smiles when it just makes Selina laugh harder.  


End file.
